Travel Snapshots: New Zealand

As Nisa mentioned in her Travel Snapshots, 2015 was a great year of travelling for the Chictales team. This is the second series of our Travel Snapshots posts. New Zealand is just so amazing and I took so many photos (close to 3,000 in 2 weeks). This is because I am a photographer and because New Zealand scenery is just so beautiful I had to capture all of the beauty.

I visit New Zealand quite often because my sister lives in Wellington. The main reason for my visit was my sister’s wedding, but I had an extra week of travelling after that. I’ve always wanted to travel to the South Island of NZ (the last time I went was when I was 14 years old on a high school trip), so I was excited about my plans. I spent 8 days starting from Christchurch where I started my road trip with my younger brother.

We picked up a rental car in Christchurch where we stayed for 1 night. We didn’t do much here – it was more of a resting stop over since we had a big day for our sister’s wedding and the cleaning up afterwards. We then drove to Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook and stayed at Twizel for 2 nights, which is about 40 min drive from Mt Cook. Lake Tekapo was just amazing, I visited during the day and at night. The light pollution there is very minimal so you can see the stars so clearly in the night sky. In Mt Cook I had the most amazing experience where I did the Glacier Hike. The next stop for a night was Lake Wanaka and then we finished our trip in Queenstown where we stayed for 4 nights. Queenstown is gorgeous! The weather was really great until we got to Queenstown so unfortunately a few activities I had booked were cancelled. I was disappointed I didn’t get to go parasailing in Queenstown, but hey that means I have to go back there again! I also did a day tour to Milford Sound which was just amazing, but since it was just a day tour and the drive from Queenstown was long, I only had a few hours. Next time I would spend a few days there and also check out the Glow Worm cave in Te Anau.

Although it was only a short trip, I had such an amazing time. I can’t wait to go back to NZ South Island again. It’s such a beautiful place.

6 Comments

Wow these photos are gorgeous Ina! Especially the one of the stars at Lake Tekapo – absolutely stunning. I’ve been to NZ before on a cruise but I haven’t explored it in depth. Maybe one day I will. I do know the countryside is lovely though.